“What Mr Miliband wants is 'responsible capitalism’. His father would have called that a contradiction in terms, wouldn’t he? 'Yes! But I believe capitalism is the least worst system we’ve got. I believe in the creativity of Blackberry [picking up his], or whatever. But I want it to be more decent, more humane, more fraternal.’ An employee should be on every remuneration committee. There is 'a strong case’ for making takeovers more difficult. He was attacked for his conference speech last year in which he divided businesses into 'predators and producers’, but 'I was definitely right’. It is ironic, says Mr Miliband, that Mrs Thatcher’s reforms, which attacked many vested interests, created new ones: they need to be taken on. There are too few banks, and six companies control 99 per cent of energy supply: 'This is about the free market working properly’. It just isn’t enough to deregulate the private sector. Wealth is created by 'the private sector working with government. We shouldn’t be ashamed of wanting an industrial policy.’ There are 'different capitalisms’ – Scandinavian as well as American.”

“... using a sample of 17 OECD economies, over 25 years (1980-2005). It is clear that for every country in the sample, tax increases resulted in a negative or stagnant output, whereas expenditure cuts resulted in an increase of output two years after the adjustment.

“They have also found ... that business confidence picks up immediately after the expenditure-based adjustments, unlike consumer confidence for which it takes longer to recover. Finally, the most important finding, in my opinion, is that the "heterogeneity in the effects of the two types of fiscal adjustments is mainly due to the response of private investment, rather than that to consumption growth". This means that private investments tend to drive recoveries, not consumption as the Keynesians would claim.

Of course, Eds Miliband and Balls and Vince Cable keep bleating about more taxes.
David Cameron is cutting expenditure.

Going back to far off days, much of the world was on the gold standard. Western societies started to ‘recover’ when that was abandoned - that is, the debts were defaulted.

Japan was backward. As we continually see, as soon as a backward country comes out from under a repressive/primitive regime and starts copying the advanced countries. They become far richer relatively quickly. They also have the advantage of working for much less, for a while.

Politicians all around the West are lying copiously to the populations, as they surreptitiously lower living standards. ‘Quantitative easing’, in other words printing money, and ‘stimulus’, in other words 'borrowing’ money, is in fact, in honest terms, raising taxes, mostly from the poor.

I see nothing new. His ideas are all policies David Cameron is trying to get through, despite constant grandstanding from the fake-Lib-Dems.

“In hard times, many a government has spent money it does not have on infrastructure projects it does not need. Japan has spent trillions since 1990 on projects including an art museum with no paintings, an airport so empty it offers passengers money to use it, and a $70 million bridge to an almost deserted island. At its peak, Japan spent more per year on public infrastructure than was spent building the entire Panama Canal.”

It was obvious that the Guardian newspaper was lying from the start, and the item was clearly written to mislead. Yet I noticed ‘journalists’ on the BBC raving about what a wonderful scoop it was, naturally without checking. Tthe irresponsibility of the left knows no boundaries.

“However, the Department of Education is in fighting form. They have responded, disputing the figures. The Department says that of the 21 (not 22) playing fields the Government has approved for disposal, 14 belonged to schools that have closed, and four were part of sites that became surplus when existing schools amalgamated. Of the other three:

One was surplus marginal grassland on the school site, the sale of which allowed investment in the school library and sports changing facilities.

One was leased to a company to redevelop and improve a playing field for the school’s use that had poor drainage and was under-used. As a result of the development, the school's playing fields now include four 5-a-side pitches, two 7-a-side pitches, a full sized football and hockey pitch and a six-court indoor tennis facility. The school also profited from private hire of facilities outside school hours.

One was due to be leased to an athletics club to improve sporting provision for both the club and the school, although the project did not go ahead in the end.”

Context: The Conservative Party want constituency boundary reform. Nick Clegg and the Liberal-Democrats is pressing for reform of the House of Lords.

lib-dems won’t vote for fair boundaries out of spite - ‘new’ labour won’t back lords reform out of spite

“We agree to establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft motions by December 2010. It is likely that this bill will advocate single long terms of office. It is also likely there will be a grandfathering system for current Peers. In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.”

This wasn’t part of the party-whipped agreement. Note “it is likely”, “the committee will come forward with”, “grandfathering”.

I'm against anything that makes the House of Lords weaker as a reviewing chamber. Turning it into a rival political cronyist chamber to the House of Commons is clearly unacceptible to most Tories. The Lords has a great reserve of specialist knowledge that the Commons sadly severely lacks.

it is clegg who is going back on the coalition agreement

“Both parties would ensure their MPs voted for the introduction of a Referendum Bill on the question of whether the electoral system for electing MPs to the House of Commons should change from first-past-the-post to Alternative Vote, and whether MPs constituencies should be changed in size or number.”

“ensure that their MPs voted for”

On this, the Conservatives have already delivered.
It is Clegg and pals who are reneging.

Meanwhile Clegg’s claim that the Conservatives have broken the coalition agreement is unfounded, I put the real situation here.

Here is the coalition agreement (caution: it’s from Wikipedia).

“Political reform

“As part of reform of the political system, the parties agreed to creating fixed-term parliaments. An early motion would set the date of the next United Kingdom general election as the first Thursday of May 2015, with later legislation establishing five year fixed terms and introducing a new minimum of 55% of MPs supporting a motion before Parliament could be dissolved outside this timetable.

“Both parties would ensure their MPs voted for the introduction of a Referendum Bill on the question of whether the electoral system for electing MPs to the House of Commons should change from first-past-the-post to Alternative Vote, and whether MPs constituencies should be changed in size or number.

“On the issue of devolution, the parties agreed to establish a committee on the West Lothian question (Scottish MPs in Westminster voting on English issue), implement the Commission on Scottish Devolution proposals, and offer a referendum on further devolution for Wales.

“Other political reform measures included introducing the power to recall MPs, bringing forward the Wright Committee proposals for Commons reform, and introducing proposals for reform of the House of Lords by December 2010, review local government and voter registration.”

[This is the actual agreement on which the Lib-Dems are now reneging.]

Meanwhile, from the Conservative manifesto, p.67:

“...we will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords, recognising that an efficient and effective second chamber should play an important role in our democracy and requires both legitimacy and public confidence.”

“we will work to build a consensus” - Clearly, 15-year terms and 80% are not a consensus.

At the same time, the socialists will oppose anything that does not benefit their cult agenda.“mainly elected” does not mean 80% voted in.